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Interview with Pierre Boulanger (Actor)
How did you get involved in the movie?
I first heard of Obsesssion (also known as Rendez-vous) thanks to my French agent Méline Saint-Marc, who called me for an audition in Paris.
What did you find interesting about the movie and your character that make you want to take part in the film?
Antoinette Beumer had something really personal to this story that I could feel. It is always challenging to work in equation with the film’s director sensibility and to honor her vision. The movie swirls between romance and thriller so we had to be on the edge of two different atmospheres, which wasn't easy. My character is full of ambivalence and he is trapped in his own game.
I knew I was going to work around the desire and feelings, which is something we don't know exactly how and where it starts in between two persons. Love is something mysterious and quite mystical. It is interesting to deal with it as an actor... questioning the incarnation of what we profoundly feel and think is real. The two characters do not speak the same language so this confusion erases everything that is not purely sensitive, and then, the physical dimension gets very important.
How did you prepare for this role?
The character is working in construction; he uses his hands every day and I liked to work and focus on his own relation to his physicality. We talked quite a lot with Antoinette Beumer about the film. Some actors do not like to rehearse before but, with Loes Haverkort, we did work and questioned a lot around the relation of our two characters.
How was the experience of working with an ensemble of Franco-Dutch actors and crew?
I guess this is Europe. The mixing of cultures and languages is nothing to be surprised nowadays as it seems to be our future and I liked it that way... Absolutely alien to Dutch language, I found myself at a difficult position at the beginning to understand what was going on, but I was never confused, thanks to the English.
You've participated in big Hollywood projects as well; how would you compare European and American cinema? Which one do you prefer?
Some big projects have a lots of different executives and sometimes, the vision you have gets unipersonal or not really clear to anyone on stage, especially for the actor. I am not saying that I don't believe in a collective creative dimension but I like authors’ films a lot. They allow a very personal and intimate relation of work between the director and the actor.
You recently worked with Brazilian director Jose Padilha (Elite Squad, Narcos, etc.), how would you describe your experience with a director from Latin America?
It was a huge film with many people so I felt a bit swallowed and chewed by this enormous movie machine...
You have also started directing short films; do you prefer to be in front or behind the camera?
They are two different things that I could hardly compare. When you direct, you are the one who has the film in mind and this feeling of global knowledge of the artwork is really satisfying. No one can dispossess you from your vision and you communicate it with all the crew. The actor has to find his own freedom of expression and being in the space that we gave him. It is totally different but not less interesting.
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